Senator proposed to be stricter for drunken driving

Member of Senate of Kazakhstan's Parliament Zhumabek Toregeldinov gave a suggestion to severe punishment for violation of traffic rules and introduce criminal prosecution for drunken driving.

"We need to significantly toughen responsibility for driving a car when drunken, up to criminal prosecution. For exceeding speed by 40km/h and more above set limits driver's license should be confiscated for 2-5 years" he said addressing inquiry to Prime-Minister Serik Akhmetov.

These violations are the most frequent reasons for mortality at roads -- the existing sanctions provided by Articles 62-64 of Administrative Violations Code just provide a penalty amounting 5-20 monthly calculation indexes (1 MCI=1618 KZT), and this is proving ineffective.

In addition, the senator recommends increasing the penalty for crossing at red lights or a traffic warden's stop gesture; introduce arrest of up to 10 days for driving after confiscation of driver's license or handovering vehicle to disqualified individuals; limit issuing C category driver's licenses for under-21 individuals; and to strongly ban under-25s from driving public transport and require driving experience of minimum 5 years.

"We need a stronger punishment for those who park at roadways with emergency signals along busy streets. By doing so, such people create artificial road bottlenecks" added Mr Toregeldinov.

In order to reduce traffic accident rate the MP also proposed to ban drivers with experience of less than a year from driving between 23.00 and 06.00.